Newest Team Members: Sacramento Coca-Cola and Umpqua Bank

I am very pleased to announce our newest sponsors for our 2010 event. Both Umpqua Bank and Sacramento Coca-Cola Bottling Co., Inc will play vital rolls in the success of DownStream.

Working with both companies has already added value to our program by enriching the quality and level of service we can provide.

DownStream Fly Fishing Day

We are now inside of two weeks before we kick off DownStream Fly Fishing 2010. We are at full capacity with 25 excited students and 78 passionate volunteers. We have a few new sponsors to add to the list and can't wait to show them our event.








DownStream means business, we make success attainable.

I had a chance to visit Mark and Kristen Brown who own Willow Creek Event Center and was blown away by improvements done in that last year. They have created a Hawaiian sanctuary where no sane person would ever want to leave. Mark and Kristen are wonderful people who have extended themselves to no end to make this event incredible. The property they have, coupled with their commitment to excellence has created a jaw-dropping background for any event. They are working hard to make a unique venue for weddings retreats and much more.

This is where our students will be hooking Rainbow Trout!

I was able to bring out one of DownStream's key supporters, Steve Pereira with Certified Systems in Chico, to help me find some fish. We were joined by his charismatic father-in-law, Harry. The trout were not too cooperative, however the bluegill and bass were anxious and willing to show off their ability to crush flies. For the event, to make sure everyone hooks a trout or two Mark has arranged for the pond to be stocked with perky rainbows.













Bluegill are plentiful and eager to inhale flies like this guy!

We feel blessed to have such passionate people helping us put this event together. It is all about the people- I am going to get you, I just need to find you!

So far so good, we have a new cooking team this year that has success written all over it. They mentioned something about tri-tip sandwiches... we'll see about that!

The bass is clearly aspiring to be like the fish on the shirt.

As part of our commitment to education we teach conservation and catch and release.

With final preparations underway we are ready and willing to do what it takes to make this day unforgettable. If you are reading this and want to get involved, contact us. We are ready to start preparing for next year.

Thank you,
Ryan
Email: rhmiller@gmail.com

A Mother's Diary: Part 4, The Announcement, Infant Stimulation and Sign Language

The Announcement

To bolster our perception of Mark as a special needs child, we had nicknamed him Sparkie. It was clearly a misnomer until the day Mark made himself a waking presence in our home. I heard him let out a complaintive cry from the other end of the house. It was alarming in its strength, I ran all out to see if he was hurt only to truly meet my son for the first time. He was looking directly up at me with eyes I had only seen a few times since he was born five weeks earlier. There was expectation in his face. His tiny fists were waving crazily in the air, and, his feet were bicycling. He was gurgling and making noises! I picked him up for a joyous cuddle and he smiled at me for the first time for the first time in five weeks.

Infant Stimulation

Now that we had Mark’s official approval of this being born and growing up plan, we began his Infant Stimulation program in earnest. Twice a week lovely, talented Sisters of the Oath- type therapists came to our home to teach me how to help Mark grow up. Mark was an official client of our local Alta Regional Support Services, our local school district special education services, and the California Hawaii Elks special needs therapists: all free services to families with children of special needs.

Those days were a blessing in a new world that was still a murky bewilderment. We would exercise and massage his weak muscles, rub his skin with different textured cloth, engage him to hold his eye contact, and enticed him to mirror expressions on our faces. At four months he began to coo and giggle a little bit. Now his smiles came spontaneously though and they were all we needed to keep us marching into the next day, He took his time deciding to join us, He was giving us the tutorial for raising him on his own terms, and in that, Mark was very clear. It was his life, and he would realize it on own time. It would take him three months to roll over, four months to truly recognize Steve and me, eight months to sit with support. His first spoken word was nih nih (night night) at eighteen months.

At two, Mark had a vocabulary repertoire of most of his peers, but he was using sign language instead of spoken words. He had a number of emerging verbal words, but relied on signing, as we did. This came easy to him and he used it diligently. Although Mark had been naming us with the signs for mama and daddy, we didn’t hear the words until he was a year old. His next real word was wah wah (water) at two years old; and, yes, I did sort of a secular all day novena to Annie Sullivan! Wah Wah. It held such joyous portent for his transition from a nonverbal to a verbal child. He knows! He knows!

**But waiting for Mark to grow was a challenge of faith. Some days were full of hopeless sobs and disappointment. On others, we went about daily business as if he wasn’t even sleeping in the living room. Developmental Delays began to take on meaning. We massaged him, took him out with us, kept stimulation up even if he didn’t respond.

Eventually, we moved him into his own room. We had a child at two, who was not crawling or talking, but signing over 100 words, was barely crawling, had very few teeth, was too small to even balance on a potty chair. The Infant Stimulation therapists were working his muscles to improve tone and strength, adding new signs constantly, working on fine motor skills so he could use a spoon and fork. Basically, anything most kids learn as a matter of fact, kept Mark dependent on this intensive prep time mentally and physically to just continue developing at our expected pace. The fact is, Mark would continue growing at his own pace, even if we left him alone. But “studies” showed marked improvement in developmental gains with early intervention. What parent would say no to that? Every move we made with Mark was in lesson or practice mode. Every task was brainstormed until we found the best way to teach him tasks or elicit social skills. If Mark’s maker had intended for him to be an example of a slow learner, we were exacting a monstrous heresy. Two days a week, we engaged marvelous Sisters of the Oath to come and work Mark’s body and brain. In the evenings and weekends we followed through with our homework assignments. Was over stimulation possible? We worried. Mark wouldn’t nap on his own. He would be exhausted and still refuse to sleep. Either Steve or me had to lay down with him, read or tell him stories before Sparkie would finally relax and sleep. We balked at this indulgence at first, but later we agreed to take turns because the naps were so priceless to our own sanity... The next part get's interesting... stay tuned

The next few entries are going to really get into the meat of our experiences and to be honest get a little tough to chew on. Be ready...

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